


Stories End, Mostly

by the_wordbutler



Category: Murder She Wrote
Genre: Jessica's sixth sense is terrifying, M/M, long histories, yearly mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once a year, give or take, Amos Tupper has reason to think about the end to an old story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stories End, Mostly

Once a year—give or take a few months, depending on how busy things are around the station and accounting for the weather—Sheriff Amos Tupper walks downstairs in the morning to find Doctor Seth Hazlitt cooking them both breakfast in his kitchen.

This time, there’s bacon sizzling on the range and what smells to be home fries baking up in the oven, and Amos resists the urge to knock his head soundly into the nearest wall. “Not again,” he groans, and rubs his face with the palm of his hand.

“I’m afraid so,” Seth greets, chipper enough to bore cavities in your teeth. He cracks another egg in a bowl before he flashes a smile over his shoulder. “In your defense, I think the whisky had something to do with it.”

“There was whisky?”

“After we ran out of bourbon.”

“There was bourbon?” 

Seth chuckles as he sets a cup of coffee right in front of Amos’s nose. He offers the sugar bowl, and Amos bats it away. He can feel the amused little smile still dancing in his direction as he takes his first grateful swallow. “How is it that every time we do this, you end up whistling dixie while I’m stuck with a marching band in the back of my head?”

“Do you really want my theory on that?”

“No.”

“I thought so.” There’s the sound of another egg cracking in the bowl. “Over easy?”

“Is there any other way to fix an egg?” Amos asks. When he looks up, Seth’s watching him, his crow’s feet crinkling along with his grin. “What?” he demands.

“Nothing,” Seth returns, and reaches for a fork to flip the bacon.

Amos grumbles to himself, really just to make noise more than anything, and ends up watching Seth’s back while he cooks. He’s lost the suspenders from the night before, and his shirt-tails are hanging out of his slacks. With the mussed-up hair and the rolled-up sleeves, he looks halfway to—well, to the man Amos met a long time ago, before Cabot Cove was a twinkle in either of their eyes. Back when Seth’s major concern was finishing up his medical degree and Amos’s major concern was distracting them both out of studying.

If only _that’d_ been something he could get a degree in.

They’d spent three long years that way, roommates on paper and a lot of other things off the record, but stories like theirs don’t usually end in the happy-ever-afters that Jessica specializes in. ‘Cause after Seth earned his piece of paper, he trotted back to his sleepy home town, Amos enrolled in the police academy, and—

Well, stories ended in real life. People ended up hundreds of miles away, or dating a string of nice women who never seemed to stick around, or drifting from one small town to another until they ended up in Cabot Cove.

Drinking bourbon on the porch with an old friend, and losing track of time.

Seth starts humming to himself, an old song Amos hates, and Amos polishes off his coffee. The percolator’s on the counter next to the stove, and if his fingers slide along Seth’s back when he stands close enough to reach it, that’s just him steadying his hand.

“If Jessica asks,” Seth comments as he turns the eggs, “I had an emergency patient down the street and happened to spend the night in your guest room.”

“And when she gives me the look?” 

“Which look is that?”

“The one that says she knows I’m lying through my teeth and’s just waiting for the day I come clean?”

Seth twists to catch his eyes. They’re standing close enough that Amos thinks it’s a shame they’re sober this morning. 

“If she gives you the look, then rest assured that I’m grateful it’s you and not me,” Seth replies, and, laughing, steals Amos’s coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't know why I wrote this. I blame exhaustion, snow days, and the fact that _Murder, She Wrote_ is my white noise of choice when I do jigsaw puzzles.


End file.
